Torche's Steve Brooks talks about Atlanta, Harvey Milk and what makes metal so gay

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Chad Radford:  There's a singular sense of humor to what you do. I have seen the Torche T-shirts that look like the old skin head, staraight edge shirts that say "not so straight" next to the picture of the shaven-headed hardcore who looks like he's about to swallow the microphone. That's hilarious.-

Steve Brooks:  We're genius...-

That's a pretty macho scene. Have those shirts come back to bite you?-

No, not at all. I don't think that people really got the joke when we first made the shirts, but people started to get it once we stopped taking them on tour with us. People at the merch table started saying where's your  not so straight shirt, those things are hilarious!'-

It's cleverly disguised like a real straight edge T-shirt. If you're not paying attention you think it's just another dumb ass Strife T-shirt, or something like that.-

Yep. The Harvey Milk shirts on this tour are hilarious, too. There's one with the Wicked Witch taking a dump on a toilet, eating a hamburger and reading the paper, and the headlines says 'the Mc Rib is back.' I thought that one was pretty awesome. There's another one that and then there's another one with a bunch of ticks doing beer bongs.-

Torche "Healer" mp3-

Harvey Milk and Torche play the Earl on Fri., July 31. $12 (adv.) $15 (dos). 9 p.m. 488 Flat Shoals Road. 404-522-3950.